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“They were ruled by a king, the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek Apollyon. The first woe is past. Behold! There are two more yet to come.”

The imagery used by the Prophet, like that used by Joel centuries earlier, is of an army of Locust over-running the earth. Unlike the natur­al locust, the demonic horde of John’s vision has a leader, or king. He is called the angel of the Abyss. Our purpose in this concluding blog is to determine, if possible, the identity of this personage.

John first identifies the angel by his Hebrew name Abaddon. James Strong identifies him as “a destroying angel of Hebrew derivation.” He translates the word as“a perishing”, and believes it to be a synonym for Hades.

There has always been a tendency to make Abaddon a concrete term for the Underworld. Philo Judaeus considered Abaddon to be a place, rather than a spirit, demon or angel, and “The Thanksgiving Hymns” from the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls speak of the “Sheol of’ Abaddon”, and of the “torrents of’ Belial that burst into Abaddon.” Centuries later, the great Milton associated Abaddon with the gates of’ Hell.

Gustav Davidson, in his book “A Dictionary of’ Angels”, postulates that John was the first theologian to personify Abaddon as an angel. Whether or not this statement is true, both the Christian and Jewish Angelologists soon adopted the practice.

After establishing the Hebrew name of the angel of the Abyss, John, as was his custom, translates it into Greek. The name Apollyon also means “destroyer”, or “to destroy fully”, and is derived from a prime root which means “to destroy by death.”

The important point to be gleaned from these names is that this angel’s primary function, the thing he is best known for, is destruction. All other considerations are secondary to this fact. This leads us to another important point upon which the commentators fail to agree. Is this angel, providing he is not a mere abstraction, good or evil?

The “Apocalypse of Elias” describes the angel of the Abyss, as a “good” angel, and even names him, “the great angel Eremiel, who dwells below over the Abyss.”

“Then I rose, I stood up, I saw a great angel who was standing before me, whose face gave light like the rays of the sun in his glory, whose face was like Him who is complete in its glory, and he was girded with a girdle of gold upon his breast, his feet were like copper which is melted in fire.”

This sentiment is echoed by S.L. Mac Gregor Mathers. In “The Greater Key of Solomon”, he states that Abaddon is the name for God that Moses invoked to bring down the blighting rain over Egypt. Although I realize that these are poor references upon which to build a theory, they are in harmony with the general tone of the Apocalypse concerning angels.

Whether Abaddon, AKA Apollyon, is a good and holy angel, a servant and messenger of the true God, depends upon whether he is identical with the angel who received the key to the Bottomless Pit. If he is so identified, and many commentators agree on this point, he can only be considered a “good” angel, for he is the one who binds Satan and casts him into the Bottomless Pit. If he is viewed as a separate entity, however, the subject is a moot point, and cannot be established, one way or the other, with any degree of certainty.

In fact, there is a certain double-mindedness to be found in most of the ancient commentators. Elias, for instance, also describes Abaddon as a fiery, tormenting angel of the Abyss, and the “Testament of’ Abraham” describes him as both an angel of light and as “every deadly disease as of the odor of death.” The “Acts of’ Thomas”, a third century work, describes Abaddon as a demon, or the Devil. Gilles Quispel, a more recent commenta­tor, finds the evil nature of Abaddon to be “obvious.”

“He emerged from the bottom of’ the pit with his forces, though John forgets to mention this particular detail here.”

John Bunyan, in his classic work “Pilgrims Progress”, identified Abaddon with the Devil, and R. C. H. Charles, in his “Critical Commentary on the Revelation of John”, identified Apollyon with Ahriman, the Persian Devil.

As the reader can see, we have a conflict of opinions that is not easily reconciled. In fact, when we consider some of’ the related opinions the problem becomes even more complex.

Who Is the King of the Locust?

Several of the Preterest commentators insist that he is Nero. This is simply a tired idea that has no symbolic justification whatsoever. Others, as we have already noted, think of Abaddon as a concrete embodiment of Hades, or the Underworld. This idea, like the Nero Redivivus Theory, simply fails to fit the symbolic flow of the visions. Others, such as the medieval artists, insist that Abaddon is the Devil, or a Demon, with hooves for hands and feet, a hairy tail, and hairy goat-like legs. This, too, is an idea that finds no support in the Apocalypse itself.

It seems that the only fact we can be certain of is that Abaddon is an angel. The earliest Christian writings, like that of many of the med­ieval Cabalists, insist that this angel represents the forces of good. Eventually, however, Abaddon came to be identified with death and destruc­tion. He became known as the Demon of the Abyss and chief-demon of’ the Underworld hierarchy, where he is equated with Samael, or Satan. Accord­ing to C. J. S. Thompson, a fifteenth-century Papal Conclave described the wicked as being divided into nine degrees or orders. Abaddon was considered to be the ruler of the seventh order.

“The seventh are the Furies, the sowers of mischief’ and discord, wars and destruction. Their prince is called Apollyon, in Hebrew Abaddon, who destroys and lays waste.”

It does not lie within the power of’ the author to resolve the conflicts and disagreements of centuries within the confines of a few short paragraphs. In the case of the angel Abaddon, the King of the Locust, we can only of­fer our personal opinion. We believe him to be a “good” angel entrusted with the supervision and ultimate control of the Locust-Demons. These terrible creatures, like all of the forces of evil, are limited in both their actions and their abilities by Divine control. He is called the destroyer because he controls this terrible scourge of God. To be a de­stroyer does not render one evil per se, and we believe Abaddon to be the “star” who “fell from heaven to earth” in the present vision, and the angel “come down from heaven” in the vision of the binding of Satan.

This entire vision, with its demonic overtones and its dire forecast concerning the coming destiny of mankind, is almost overwhelming in both its scope and its breadth. But the Prophet does not leave us without hope. He tells us, in the final line of the vision, that the first woe is past. Like a ray of’ light in a dark and damp cellar, this promise, which is given from the future eschatological perspective, offers a battered world a brief moment of relief from the terrible plague of the Locust.

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